Leaving

You are always leaving her, this one who grew you, shaped you, loves your shadow side.

The one whose loving heart still beats within yours, who gave you that heart,

Who nourishes you with her own body.

You are sliding out the birth canal and the next thing you know

You’ve got one foot out the door…hands and knees first, then a wobbler upright, on your walker,

Then on trike, the bike. One day, a car, while she clutches her throat in the driveway, watching.

You are always leaving her.

But your mother’s lap is always there, offering the most sacred succor you can imagine. It’s the most comforting and natural spot in the world. Soft in her bathrobe, it envelopes you, smelling of her bath salts, You are sometimes sad in the lap or maybe not that exactly — you are disconnected. You want to be even closer again, you want to share hearts. You sniffle a little and she tells you to run get your blankie and stuffed animals and you do, and you all hunker down in her her lap like a soft fluffy cloud. She reads to you from one of the favorites, “Are You My Mother?” The one she has taught you to read before you even started school. Sleep is instant and this, this is peace.

After she has snuggled with you for a good long time, she gets up to make coffee and then sits at the piano to practice. You love the rich sound and take your dolls underneath it, pretending it is their grand home while the Classical waves rise and fall around you.

Turning around in classroom doorways, parking lots, the mall, doctor’s offices, to wave goodbye to her. Or worse, pretending you don’t know her, won’t be seen with her in a crowd.

Peering into the crowd from the school stage in hopes that you might see the glint of her eye glasses in the stage lights. And see her smile. It is the sight that makes you happiest.

Afterwards is a chocolate ice cream treat (she always knows to get the one with almonds but your dad forgets) and you’re on her lap for this glorious moment, a moment so sharp all these years later, because you don’t stay in that lap.

Your job is to strike out — to run, chase — to play; at the fountain, with the other kids, and you remember the choice, the pull toward your friends and the regret to leave her behind. She sits with the other mothers looking out of place, a book in her lap. You want to run back to her.

But you don’t. You want your friends to like you.

The lap is always there in the corner of your mind, as is she — an oasis of comfort. As you get older you need it less, fewer skinned knees, less hurt feelings. You read yourself to sleep.

But it’s in your dreams, as is she, this safety boundary that will always receive you when you need. In some ways it is always the thought of her, of that circle of love, that allows you to fall asleep at all.

The dogs know about the lap best. They never leave it willingly.

Your leaving gets bigger, and you go away farther, for work, for exploration, for change. Calling throughout, hearing her calm voice on the other end of the phone as she’s her stirring her coffee, and then the delicate clink clink clink, tapping her spoon on the side of the cup, when she’s done. It is that tiny sound more than any other that you associate with your mother. You hear it and your heart jumps to other such intimacies: the long equaline nose of her profile, the mole on her right hand, the fleck in her left eye, her birthstone ring, her wink. That is how you know she’s yours.

As an adult, there would be times she would still hold you close in her lap– the worst times. After the accident, college, the divorce. Singing a lullabye at times. Mostly saying nothing.

Your room, always at the ready to receive you back home. It stayed that way for many years, your childhood bed to sleep in with family history and knick knacks filling the room. And a Swiffer.

The babies come and then they, too, know the magic of this lap. And they too, are shot out of it from a cannon as soon as they can move. The world pulls them into it — with its colors and sound, excitement and smells. The lap can wait — the lap is always back there should you need it, patiently waiting to soothe you and now, your own babies.

And the cycle starts again — birthday parties and swimming pools and special occasions, piano recitals, games — always bounding out the door, waving goodbye. Looking at the pictures later.

Then one day, as you speed up, she slows down. You are busy, so busy at this life stage with teenagers and a full-time job. You don’t live close by so the signs are easy to miss. One day while you’re visiting her you notice she uses a walker. She cannot clean up the kitchen with this cumbersome thing — glasses perched precariously on the edge of the seat — so you do it for her. It’s the first of many, so many.

She begins to fall, then to not make sense, then other crises, the hospital visits. You show up every time, holding her hand, sleeping in the chair next to the hospital bed. Talking, praying, listening to her music. You get up to leave the room to make a call, start to wave, but this time she calls you back, pleads with you. Please stay. It may be the only time she’s really asked you for anything. You see it, its stark paleness in that grim hospital light, you see it fill her face. It is fear.

So you stay. You stay through all the procedures, and you stay with your dad, and you stay during the lonely nights and the boring days. When she cannot drive any longer, you drive her in the car or have things sent to her. When she cannot care for herself in her own home, your sister finds a lovely place for them, and you move them there, and you stay there many nights, on a mattress on the floor. You lunch with them. You bring the kids. When they can no longer stay there, and need more comprehensive care, you move them yet again, this time to be closer to you. You want to move them into your own home and care for them there, that’s what family does. But their needs are too great, and your house is small and inaccessible. So you bring home to them at the facility, decorating their room, bringing in food, treats, books, music, champagne, her piano. You read to her. You accompany them to church every Sunday like she’s been begging you to do for years. The challenges she is facing seem crushing and insurmountable with no cure in sight. It’s a worn-out body breaking down, but feels like an affront, a betrayal. She’s losing so much every day now that you barely have time to process the loss that’s coming for you — deep and primal. Who are you in this world, how can you even survive in it, without a mother?

Every night after work that winter you race over, pulling your car up into the parking space right outside her room and every time she is there — the silhouette of her in her wheelchair, looking out the window, waiting for you. Sometimes you wait to step out in the cold and as you sit you see the lights come on in other rooms of the facility. The bubbly marketing and sales people have all gone home for the day, and the staff that are left at night seem sullen and lazy. Frail men and women shuffle past the window,s watching TV alone, or trying, and failing, to open a can of soup. You worry about leaving her each time. So while you’re there you try, simply, to give her joy.

These last few years have the holy glow of fading light. Every moment you capture is a precious one. Time moves slowly, dipped in gold, and this membrane that separates from the other side, you can feel it, feel how close and tenuous it is. You realize that all the moments have been precious, all are like this, if you feel.

You stay, and you stay. You barely sleep, or you sleep on the floor. Her breathing turns shallow, she ceases to eat. She asks you to tell your father that she is passing away. You muster everything you have to tell your father, grieving in his own fog of dementia, that your mother is dying of dementia. The three of you cry softly together at the bedside. There is nothing more to write after this, this is heartbreak is enough.

One tender morning in May, you bathe her in beauty and watch as she fades into the bed.

It begins to gently rain as suddenly there is one, not two, in the room. She is free.

And that peace that you first learned from her fills the air.